No Early Christmas Presents For “Hills”

At times in this well contested game, “Hills” were the equals of Cartha QP, their south side rivals, having a very good return from the touchline and the game’s only tight head strike, but failure to impose themselves when they were in possession – Cartha had two yellow cards, while “Hills” had only the one- ultimately proved very costly, as the visitors pulled away from a seventeen points to five half time score to thirty four points to twelve after sixty minutes and then fifty eight to twelve at fulltime.

Despite the one sided nature of the final scoreline, there was at times much to admire in some of “Hills” play : Callum Stove’s catch of his own side’s restart kick and subsequent charge into the Cartha QP twenty two ; Rory Harte’s “hokey cokey “ try when he danced in and out of the clutches of at least five defenders to score between the pots; hooker Harry Perston’s solid all round eighty minute game which was franked by a fine try ; and Carlos Celsis’s all action ball carrying in the loose. Unfortunately the game did not end well for the brave Chilean, as he was stretchered from the field and hospitalised with a serious knee injury. Elsewhere, there were at times good collective efforts and constant endeavours to take the game to Cartha, but the sustained recycling and associated ball handing and control were not present in sufficient quantity to guarantee momentum and tries.

The season now breaks for the Christmas and New Year holidays. Regrettably not even the most generous of “Santas” can provide a gift wrapped National league win, and the squad will now require to dig deep in 2017 to re-discover their individual and team motivation, commitment and a winning formula to see entries in the “win column” of the league tables.